This may be an unpopular opinion but I think launching is overhyped and over-weighted in terms of importance for sales. In my experience, developing an offer that sells for more than $20 takes a serious investment of time and effort.
If you’ve tried a bunch of marketing strategies and you can’t find one that works…
If you’re attracting the clients and customers that drive you nuts…
If you’re not generating enough revenue to cover your business expenses and pay yourself well…
You probably should take another look at your offer. My Offer Design Process will walk you through designing a better offer step by step.
The Offer Design Process
Offer design is an iterative process that has lots of stops, starts, twists and turns. It has elements in common with the artistic process and the scientific process. Artists and scientists don’t start with the idea that there should be a straight line from concept to complete. So why do we think it should be that way in business?
Below is a graphic I created to show you how to go about designing an offer people want to buy:
Magnetic Offer Design Process Map
The Problem With Focusing on the Launch
Launching without going through the offer design process is all about you. You decided what you wanted to create. You put a price on it. You decided how to deliver it. And you are emotionally and probably financially invested in it.
The Offer Design Process starts with the person who you want to buy something from you. It’s focused on discovering a something they need, creating that solution, delivering it in a way that works for them at a price they are willing to pay.
But it’s also about making sure that the offer you have in mind is profitable enough to create a sustainable business and enjoyable enough to deliver so you don’t get completely burned out.
Steps in the Offer Design Process
Phase 1: Investigate
It’s during this phase that you talk to your customers or the people you want to be your customers. Your goal? To get laser focused on what problem you can solve, who you can solve it for and why your customer is willing to invest in a solution.
Phase 2: Innovate
Now comes the fun part. The innovate phase is all about coming up with ways to solve the problem and designing a business that you’re excited about. Sometimes you’ll step back and forth between Investigate and Innovate until you settle on something you believe will work.
Phase 3: Evaluate
Evaluate is all about experimentation. Does your solution solve the problem? Are people willing to pay to get the problem solved? And is that amount enough for you to build a business on. If it isn’t, you may need to revisit Investigate and Innovate again.
Phase 4: Differentiate
The next phase is Differentiate. It’s all about making you and your offer different from the other solutions that are out there. And it’s not just about being different from the other people that do what you do. It’s about being different from however your customers are solving the problem now. Differentiate is also where you figure out how you’re going to deliver delight every time a customer interacts with you.
Phase 5: Communicate
Once you’ve built a magnetic offer using the previous steps, it’s time to Communicate it to your audience. The clearer you can be and the more you can simplify how you talk about your offer, the easier it will be to get people to take you up on your solution.
Where to Start with the Offer Design Process
While the process is iterative, the starting point is always the same — Investigate. If it’s been a minute since you’ve talked to your customers or the people you want to be your customers, it’s time. If you have survey data, it can be helpful but I urge you to have at least 5-7 live conversations with people.
If you’d like my help with this, I offer an Offer Design Lab Class a few times a year. Get on the list to be notified when the next one starts.
